Four Poems

By Katherine Kallas 
 
 Off 8th Street 
 Memory is a place shattered by wind 
Its pieces swept up into god’s dustpan 
and dumped in the Mississippi River 
 The water is murky here, on the tilted shore off 8th street 
 Frogs with full lungs, as bulbous as onions 
Cicadas scream in high-pitched static 
Dragonflies hitch on the water’s surface 
wisps of neon blue thread stitch a map 
of someone with hair as long as tallgrass 
With eyes that hang low 
as the branches of a live oak 
 My boots sink in the mud bruising earth 
I pack purple into the collarbones of the bank 
Cast my line into the mouth of my reflection 
and fish for something fat and familiar 
 Nest 
 Memory: something orange, like the glass beads in Jenna’s kitchen windows that separate me from a cloud-coated sky. My therapist tells me: settle into your body, try to find it again. How to find home in something lanky and unending? Burrow in a stomach made of silk and a head stuffed with steel wool. 
 I wish I could build myself a nest like the sandhill cranes on the shores of the Missouri River. With hearths full of blooming milkweed, burgundy flickering through the sedges. Beds cushioned with ferns and cattails, a muscular roof – a mother’s copper wingspan. 
 Instead, I hoard loose fibers and margarita straws, trying to construct safety in this body. To pack it full of lace and optimism, and fly to a lighter place. 
 
 
 Arkansas Review 56.2 (August 2025) 
 112 
 
 
 
 Audrey’s House 
 Cicadas are Audrey’s birthday month bug 
and sometimes if I close my eyes and believe too much 
I can hear them way down in December 
 I watch girls drive dirt bikes through wiry grass 
Churning up dust – all the dead things are alive again 
resurrecting the dusty parts of me that July sun dried out 
 I fear the world spins too fast for me and that I’ll be left 
floating on my back in an above-ground pool 
somewhere Arkansas 
 So tonight, 
I toast to imperfections 
and with grapefruit on my tongue 
I raise a glass to late August bitterness 
 American Flag Chest Piece 
 Points of contact at the ankle and nose, hook onto each other for stability. 
It’s Tornado Alley outside. 
I am patriotic when it comes to him. 
Light roman candles, we watch the birth of several large stars. 
I crawl under his skin, like an American flag chest piece. 
 Anita says I need to – Grow and learn to yell. 
Louder than the static which hovers above fields of tall grass. 
Balls of anxiety, mosquitos dart through the air looking for someone sweeter. 
“Never settle.” 
 Red freckled shoulders, houses he constructs in the air, “when we . . .” 
Talk of mountains, and toddlers, and porch swings, and balding. 
Anita calls me for dinner. Her voice pierces the air, like the sharp salutes from paper bombs exploding on the driveway. 
I march in blue boots all the way home 
 
 
 Arkansas Review 56.2 (August 2025) 
 113